


Port in a Storm

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: England Series - K. J. Charles
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crying, Edgeplay, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:29:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21834565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: February, 1900. Bill receives the very worst news from South Africa, and there's only one person he wants to see afterward.
Relationships: Bill Merton/Jimmy Yoxall
Comments: 16
Kudos: 147
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Port in a Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torakowalski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/gifts).

> I hope this doesn't make you cry on Christmas in a bad way?? My brain went to exactly one place when you mentioned characters crying and being comforted, so I hope this isn't TOO sad. <3

Bill had just hung up his dripping overcoat beside his dripping umbrella, and taken off his hat. He was looking at the drenched Homburg, wondering how best to ensure that it would dry out in something like the proper shape without being dreadfully obvious about fussing over it, when he heard his bureau chief's voice.

"Merton." 

Bill looked up to see that grave expression, the man beckoning Bill to his office and the slip of a telegram in his hand, and his heart sank. The room seemed to turn very bright as his vision narrowed down to that little slip.

The War Office was only across the way; Bill knew enough men there that if a telegram were being dispatched to Skirmidge House with the name of one of his brothers in it, they might have sent a copy here. Frank and Donald were both in South Africa, besieged at Ladysmith. Anything could have happened since the last letters he'd had from them.

Bill felt himself walking calmly, slowly, over to the chief's office. He wished he could walk slower, or never arrive at all, like Zeno's arrow, so that he would never have to find out what he was walking toward. _Which one, which one, maybe it's something else, maybe--_

The chief didn't say anything, just put a hand on Bill's shoulder and held out the slip, and Bill forced his gaze down to the printed letters.

War Office, yes. Addressed to his father at Skirmidge House.

_Both your sons_. Frank. Donald. 

Both of them. They'd been dead for days already. It had taken time to get the latest casualty list out past the Boer besiegers. His brothers would be buried by now--in South Africa, never to return home. Together, at least, but so far from where they belonged.

Bill was dimly aware of a ringing in his ears, and the chief saying the rote words of condolence, telling him to take what time he needed. Bill nodded and felt his mouth moving in the shape of perfectly normal words, and then he turned away.

He had to get out of the office, away from the eyes of all these clever, analytical men. He had to get--somewhere safe.

He didn't realize he was outside again until he felt the frigid rain still pelting down. He hadn't stopped for his coat or umbrella, but his right hand still held his hat. He put it back on his head, for what protection it was. His left hand was clenched tight around a crumpled slip of paper, but he couldn't look at it now--if he opened his hand it would be drenched. It would disintegrate in this downpour.

Bill started walking. He had come out on the park side, and he made for the blur of green ahead of him, walking briskly without thinking of where he was going. He simply had to get there as quickly as possible, before--before--

No. He wasn't thinking of that. He wasn't thinking of anything. He was only walking. It was like boxing in a way; there was no thought, no analysis, no words at all. There was only his body and the situation. He only had to act and react. He walked. He left the park behind, crossed Piccadilly with scarcely any notice of the traffic he dodged, or which dodged him, and then he was in the calm orderly streets of Mayfair. 

He'd hardly ever walked this way. The sort of visit he made on foot was not the sort one made to the front door of the Earl of Witton's London house. But that didn't matter right now. Nothing mattered right now but getting there.

The door opened to him before he'd reached the top of the stairs; the butler recognized him, naturally, because he was quite a respectable old friend of Jimmy's. "Mr. Merton, please--"

There were more words; Bill allowed the man to take his hat and then he looked up the stairs and Jimmy was there, rushing down to meet him. He was only half dressed; it was absurdly early for an earl's son to even be awake. Bill shouldn't have assumed he would be. Only working men were about at this hour. 

But Jimmy was here before him now. Bill had made it far enough. 

Jimmy wasn't saying anything, only running a hand over Bill's cheek. Jimmy's touch felt hot--feverish--was Jimmy ill? He ought to be in bed. Jimmy's hands burned as they pried open Bill's half-frozen fingers to reveal the slip of paper, scarcely wet at all.

"Oh, hell," Jimmy said, and passed the slip to someone who didn't matter, because he wasn't Jimmy. "Come on, old man, upstairs. We'll get you out of those wet things before you freeze. Come on."

Bill nodded, but didn't move until Jimmy's dangerously hot grip closed on his hand, drawing him up the stairs. He oughtn't to bother Jimmy if he was ill; he should--should--

Now they were in Jimmy's bedroom, familiar and strange all at once--he didn't think he'd ever stepped foot in Jimmy's room at the London house. This wasn't the place for that sort of meeting, but Jimmy was pulling his clothes off; Jimmy was scarcely dressed himself.

Bill started at the realization that there was someone else in the room--but it was Jimmy's man, Brown, who knew everything anyhow. Still, Jimmy oughtn't to be undressing him with the man in the room, let alone handing over Bill's clothes to him. There was such a thing as dignified discretion, even if one couldn't have actual secrets from one's man.

Bill couldn't bring himself to resist, though. Jimmy was talking--to Brown, maybe, explaining somehow--and then Brown walked away, and the door closed, and Bill was alone with Jimmy at last. 

"Come on," Jimmy said again, softer. "Come here, then, Bill." 

Jimmy tugged again, his hands still feeling fever-hot against Bill's cold skin. Bill stumbled after him as far as the chair by the hearth--the fire was burning, warm, he would get warm now--

"Donny," he choked out. "And--and--F--"

He didn't manage the name; it was nothing but a sob, only half muffled against Jimmy's shoulder as Jimmy pressed him down bodily into the chair. Bill clung to him, and Jimmy's weight settled awkwardly over him, warm and forcing him to finally keep still and let the words and thoughts catch up. 

His brothers were dead.

They had been dead already for days, lying lifeless while he was going to work and going home and sleeping on clean sheets and going to the theater and the club and to bed with Jimmy--and his father and sister were finding out right now from a bloody telegram--and--

Bill let out another awkward sob and another, and Jimmy moved a little, tucking Bill's face into the warm soft place where his neck met his shoulder, and then Bill couldn't hold back. He wailed like a child, clutching fiercely at Jimmy as the sobs shook him.

This, too, was a thing without words or thoughts or analysis, only his body's reactions and the tide of fathomless loss. But better, now, because there was also Jimmy to cling to, Jimmy's familiar voice murmuring steadily in his ear, Jimmy's hand rubbing warmly over his shoulder. His brothers were gone and never coming back, but Bill wasn't alone.

After a while that began to impinge heavily on his awareness: he was making a nuisance of himself, carrying on like this. He tried to pull away from Jimmy, to hide his face somewhere other than against Jimmy's skin, but Jimmy's arms only clamped around him at that. 

"Not a chance," Jimmy said in his ear, a hint of rare sternness in his voice. "Don't try to hide from me now, William."

Bill shuddered--that wasn't playing fair at all, wasn't right when--when--but he was a little soothed all the same by Jimmy taking charge. He already had taken charge, of course, though Bill had been too far gone to properly notice it. 

He noticed now, as his sobs calmed and his body began to settle. Jimmy had him pinned as effectively as ever he could be, trapped in this chair; Bill was utterly nude, while Jimmy still wore his trousers and shirt, though his cuffs and collar flapped open and a good portion of the linen was nearly transparent with moisture. 

"I'm sorry," Bill said, his voice wobbling nearly to unintelligibility. "I shouldn't have--"

He shouldn't have done any of this. He shouldn't have come to Jimmy like this in the middle of the day, and made a fuss so all the staff would be talking of it. The earl and countess might have been here, Jimmy might have had other guests--

"Of course you should," Jimmy said, still with that edge of sternness. "Where else should you have gone? I'm your oldest friend, and you've just had dreadful news--" 

Jimmy's voice shook a little at that--nothing like Bill's unsteadiness, but losing the deliberate edge. Bill looked up, squirming around to meet Jimmy's gaze, and saw that his eyes were red too, his face wet with tears he must have shed without ever ceasing to speak comforting words to Bill. 

He should have thought. Donald had only been a year below them at university, and naturally had matriculated at the same college. That was when he and Bill had begun to be something like friends as well as brothers, and of course Jimmy had got to know him at the same time. Bill had always thought that Donald knew--or suspected and scrupulously did not pursue the suspicion--what Bill and Jimmy were getting up to. There had been times he seemed to knowingly give them chances to get each other alone, never with any sign of resentment or distaste. 

He had been Jimmy's friend too, and Bill had--

Jimmy shook his head, raising one aristocratic eyebrow just as if his face were perfectly unmarked. "No second guessing," Jimmy said. "You were right to come, and you'll do well to let me look after you for a while. Brown's told everyone we need to be let alone this morning, and no one will question it in the circumstances. Will you be still and not argue if I stand up for a moment?"

Bill nodded. He wasn't sure he could stand or speak a complete sentence if he wanted to, and when it came to it... he really didn't want to. As thoughtless as Jimmy could be about most things, when he chose to give his attention to something he never failed. He had never failed Bill, when they were together like this.

He had known he would be safe here, with Jimmy. He had known there was only one person he could bear to see him going to pieces.

Now Jimmy stood, pressed a kiss to Bill's forehead, and then walked away just as far as the washstand, carelessly doffing his own shirt on the way. He gave his own face a cursory swipe on the linen before dropping the shirt in a heap, then wet a cloth in the basin, wringing it out just so before he came back and settled himself gracefully on Bill's thigh. The damp cloth was tepid against Bill's face, and Bill realized that if nothing else, the weeping fit had given him time to warm up. He must have been half-frozen in body as well as mind by the time he'd walked through the February rain all the way from Whitehall to Mayfair.

Jimmy fussed over him, wiping Bill's nose as carefully and calmly as he swabbed the tears from his cheeks, and Bill let the simplicity of it wash over him. He was letting Jimmy do what he liked; that was all. He didn't have to think.

He didn't think before he said, "He was going to resign his commission."

Jimmy nodded, humming a soft, sad assent, and he turned to running his fingers through Bill's damp hair. Bill had never been gladder not to use pomade than he was now--except, perhaps, for every other time Jimmy's hands had been in his hair. 

Jimmy knew what Donald had been planning, of course. Bill had told him about Donald's letters, though he would never have broken his brother's confidence to anyone else. Donald had been heartily sick of army life, a dissatisfaction that had grown steadily more obvious in the letters they had exchanged over the past year or so. He'd made up his mind months ago, but had meant to stay with his men until they'd returned from India to England. Then they'd been diverted for the invasion of Natal, besieged at Ladysmith, and...

"He said he never wanted to shoot anything bigger than a fox ever again," Bill said softly. "We didn't know quite when he'd be free, but--this summer--"

Bill had entertained fond thoughts of partridge season at Skirmidge House, going out for long warm days of shooting with Donald and Pat--and Jimmy, naturally. He'd liked the thought of Pat having a chance at getting to know Donald, who fell between them in age, now that they were all properly adults. And of course, Jimmy ought to be there. He always wanted Jimmy there, for all the best things.

He didn't think he could bear going back to Skirmidge House this summer. Not now. 

"You'll come home with me," Jimmy said firmly. "Come up to Rodington Court for the shooting. You haven't been in years, and there's plenty of places we can go off by ourselves around the old pile."

Bill let his eyes fall shut and didn't picture it. He couldn't just yet. But he didn't have to decide, didn't have to plan. Jimmy was handling things right now. Jimmy fussed over him a little more, then said, "All right, I think you're tidy enough. Time to make a different mess of you, don't you think?"

Bill couldn't claim to be surprised by the suggestion--Jimmy had already taken charge in a way that normally turned in this direction much more quickly--but it still seemed... wrong somehow. Improper. Today, and here. He opened his mouth but couldn't formulate an objection that he was sure he could speak out loud.

Jimmy's expression was soft, patient. "I'm looking after you today, old chap, because you've had a nasty shock and you're not up to looking after yourself. So perhaps you should let me be the judge of what kind of looking after you need, all right? Come on, come to bed."

"I have to.. I have to go..." Bill said, though he was letting himself be tugged to his feet and led to the bed as he said it, and the thought of going so far as another room seemed ludicrous. 

Still--he had responsibilities. He couldn't leave Pat to handle Father and Jonty and whatever arrangements were to be made on her own. Or rather, he could, because she would, but it would be a beastly thing to do to his favorite--

"Brown is making the travel arrangements for us to leave no sooner than after luncheon, and you'll need that much time to be in any state to be seen," Jimmy said. "He'll send a wire to Pat to say when we'll arrive. It's all in hand, and so are you, so lie down."

Bill lay down. "Please," he whispered, though he couldn't say what he wanted to ask for. _Please keep me here. Please don't let me feel anything but you. Please make it all right somehow._

He shouldn't want any of that--it couldn't _be_ all right--and still...

Jimmy moved over him, settling his weight half on Bill. "Hands to the headboard, now," Jimmy said, and as soon as Bill obeyed, pressing his hands flat to the carved wood, Jimmy was kissing him. 

Bill's breath shuddered, almost another sob, at the first light brush of Jimmy's lips against his. Jimmy leaned more heavily into him, pressing the kiss deeper as a gasp parted Bill's lips. 

"Keep your hands where I want them," Jimmy murmured in his ear. "And keep as quiet as you can, will you? Can you do that for me, William?" He said it sweetly, genuinely a question, but there was still an echo of that sternness in the words, or in the hard pressure of Jimmy's body against his.

"I can," Bill breathed. "I will. I promise."

"Good man," Jimmy said, giving him one more kiss on the mouth before he started moving lower, lips brushing ticklishly light over his skin. The agonizingly gentle sensation was broken up with the occasional sharp nip where marks would never show, though they both knew quite well how to keep from leaving visible evidence by now.

Every touch, sharp or soft, left his skin tingling in its wake, and his cock was already thick and stiffening by the time Jimmy worked his way down that far. Jimmy's hands closed firmly on Bill's hips, and Bill pressed his palms harder against the wood of the headboard, bracing himself to keep still and quiet. 

His head went back at the first touch of Jimmy's wet mouth against his cock, and Bill pressed his lips hard together, humming low to vent some fraction of the shout that wanted to burst out. Jimmy hummed an approving little sound back--he recognized the strategic effort Bill was making to keep quiet by not keeping altogether silent--but that was something Bill knew without having to think about it, from years of encounters in various degrees of safety. 

He wasn't thinking of anything with Jimmy's mouth on him. He was only feeling, and the sound Jimmy made around his cock was quite something to feel. It wasn't long at all before he let his mouth fall open to breathe in rough gasps, his hips jerking helplessly as his climax approached.

And then Jimmy drew away, kneeling up between Bill's sprawled legs. Lying as he was, Bill's gaze went directly to the front of Jimmy's trousers, distorted with the evidence of how much Jimmy enjoyed what they were doing. That was all well and good, but Bill wanted him to be enjoying it quite a bit more _horizontally_, and instead Jimmy just knelt there, smiling a little and watching him gasp.

"_What_," Bill demanded, when Jimmy said nothing and made no further move.

"Oh, yes, I was thinking I should get these off," Jimmy said, in a cheerful imitation of his own typical thoughtlessness. 

Bill's eyes narrowed, but Jimmy scrambled off the bed and finished stripping. When he came back to bed he stretched out beside Bill and kissed him--Bill could nearly taste himself, though it was just a hint of sweat and musk that he might as easily be smelling in the air. 

"Jim," Bill managed, when Jimmy stopped kissing him for a moment. "_Please_. Or let me move."

"Oh, no, certainly not," Jimmy said offhandedly. "You still need seeing to, especially if you're speaking in complete sentences."

Bill growled a little, and Jimmy flashed a grin and then pressed a hand to the center of Bill's chest to hold him down, and worked his way down to Bill's cock all over again. Bill braced himself for another tease, but there was no use trying not to get swept up in sensations when Jimmy was determined to drive him out of his mind. 

He was soon cursing softly under his breath, writhing; he would have pushed himself off the headboard altogether if not for Jimmy's grip on him. That was the one fixed point in all of it, the warmth and weight of him an anchor when Bill might otherwise be quite lost.

Bill was beyond even cursing, reduced to short sharp gasps, when Jimmy pulled away again. Bill groaned, and curled up a leg to kick at him ineffectually. 

Jimmy just grinned, crawling back up over Bill until they were face to face. "You sounded awfully lonely," Jimmy murmured, and kissed him with lips that felt hot and nearly bruised. 

He really shouldn't, it would be obvious--

But Bill could no more tell Jimmy to stop kissing him, or stop doing anything else to him, than he could have stopped breathing. He curled his fingertips against the wood of the headboard and whined into Jimmy's mouth, trying to push up against him, but Jimmy arched away from him every time he got a tantalizing bit of friction. 

This time Bill didn't bother trying to form words, and instead gave Jimmy's lower lip a sharp little bite when he couldn't bear the teasing anymore. 

"Ooh, that's better," Jimmy muttered, and then bit Bill's lip rather harder, before he started moving downward yet again.

After being brought to the brink twice already, every touch seemed magnified. Jimmy's lips dragging down the line of his breastbone nearly made him sob, and Jimmy's hands on his hips made him try desperately to push up. Jimmy's mouth made his breath stop altogether, and he wrapped his legs around Jimmy to keep him in place even as Jimmy went on teasing in little licks and touches, far too much to bear but never quite enough to bring him off.

Bill wasn't thinking--was far beyond being able to think--so he didn't decide to reach for Jimmy. He felt and saw his own hand flying free from where he'd held it for an agonizing eternity, and only just jerked it back from sinking into Jimmy's hair, plastering his palm over his own mouth instead. 

Jimmy noticed, of course, looking up with a dark, wicked gaze. Bill knew one instant of genuine fear that Jimmy would punish him in some truly cruel way--moving out of arm's reach was all it would take to break him completely--but Jimmy only turned his head and bit hard on the point of Bill's hip, making Bill all but shout into his muffling hand. He managed it better when Jimmy left a matching bite on the other side, but when Jimmy met his eyes again, Bill made his legs fall open and forced his hand back to the headboard.

Even so, Jimmy shook his head a little and crawled up until they were face to face. He reached over Bill's head, laying his hand over Bill's to pin them in place. "I guess I'll just have to help out, won't I," Jimmy murmured. "Keep you on the straight and narrow."

Bill laughed a little wildly--there was nothing resembling the straight and narrow here--but Jimmy caught the sound in another rough kiss. Bill quickly stopped laughing to let out a heartfelt groan, because Jimmy finally, finally settled low enough for their bodies to meet, Jimmy's cock pressing to his belly and Bill's finding the firm hot touch of Jimmy's sweaty skin, Jimmy's muscles flexing as he rocked down into Bill. 

It didn't take long after that; before Bill even had to pull away to breathe, he was bucking up and coming between them in a wonderfully overwhelming rush of sensation. He was aware of Jimmy dotting kisses on his cheeks and forehead, still thrusting down against Bill while he came and after, when he was lying stunned and still under Jimmy's weight. 

Jimmy's mouth returned to his for a few more kisses, frantic but no longer harsh, Jimmy's breathing breaking into little sounds at last. He came between them, and Bill felt a dim satisfaction--he had given Jimmy that, had let him have what he needed to feel that good--and then he sagged down onto Bill with his full weight.

Bill drifted, or dozed, his mind empty of everything but warmth. He noticed after a while that his hands were resting on the pillow, that Jimmy had threaded their fingers together. 

After a while, Jimmy moved, just enough to retrieve a cloth from the bedside table, and then he rolled to the side to swipe them both at least passably clean. Bill watched his hands, watched their two bodies, legs still tangled, and he thought with an exhausted, quiet sadness, _My brothers are dead._

He didn't think he made a sound, but Jimmy's attention refocused on him; he tossed the cloth away and brought a hand to cradle Bill's cheek, giving him a searching look. There was that faint anxiety on his face that Bill had long since learned to read--_Was that right? Was it what you wanted as much as I wanted it?_

Bill felt himself smile, and the motion felt stiff though it wasn't insincere. He--

It struck him all at once, stopping his breath as he looked into Jimmy's eyes. 

Of course it had been right, because it had been Jimmy. Bill had come here for Jimmy--not just for a safe place to react, not even for the consolation of sex. He had come because he had wanted, needed, _Jimmy_\--because Jimmy was the person he wanted to turn to when things were bad. It wasn't only the good things in life he wanted to share with Jimmy, the sunny summer days and pleasant evenings and pleasurable nights; Bill wanted Jimmy by his side in grief and trouble and--_sickness and health_\--

Bill pushed up enough to kiss him so he wouldn't say any of it. Now wasn't the time, and he wasn't altogether sure that Jimmy would wish to hear it; it would complicate things and neither of them needed that this morning. But Bill knew now, and the knowledge was a little ember of comfort on this cold, bleak day.

_I love you, Jimmy Yoxall, and I don't want anyone else._

Jimmy kissed him back so carefully, so sweetly, that Bill knew he returned the sentiment at least enough to be going on with. That was enough. Jimmy was his help and comfort today, and Bill couldn't ask for more.


End file.
